Tuesday, March 22, 2022

Reb00t 1t - Zack Snyder's Justice League part 1


OK, we’re looking at a different kind of reboot here. After Batman v Superman planted seeds for a Justice League, Zack Snyder was hard at work on the project and had done most of the filming for it, sadly it was interrupted by the tragic death of his daughter and he left the project to grieve and I hold no ill will toward him for that.

Still, that takes time and they needed alignment in the actors’ filming schedules and various other issues to continue filming, there were already difficulties with the product we ended up with, hence Supes’ awful CG chin to remove the facial hair for Mission: Impossible. So I get why WB handed over the reins to Joss Whedon. The problems were many-fold, WB execs wanted the film out so they could get their bonuses, he was also under pressure to lighten the tone based on reception to Batman v Superman. And no, I’m not defending Whedon acting like a piece of crap on-set, Ray Fisher has come out with some rather disturbing on-set stories with both Whedon and Geoff Johns mentioned by name as perpetrators.

Still, I’m not a huge fan of Snyder either, his take on Superman felt like a fundamental misunderstanding of the character and he drew on material that he also fundamentally misunderstood in Batman v Superman. He also began riling up fan interest in reviving his take on the film. I can’t understand the level of entitlement here, it’s not a good look and neither is the studio acquiescing to the tune of $70m? This film already had a ballooned budget thanks to all the reshoots.

Of course, with Zack it’s all about the artistic vision. How do I know he’s gone this pretentious route? This ‘movie’ has a 4:3 aspect ratio and is available in Black and White. There’s nothing wrong with an artistic vision however, but with a medium like film, it should be an entertaining product first and foremost and that’s the angle I’ll be judging it from. It’s also nearly 4 hours long so to protect my sanity, I’ll be splitting this over 2 reviews. They’ve nicely broken it into 6 chapters so I’ll try and stick with chapters 1-3 for this review, and 4-6 for next week’s review.

So the plot of the film follows the plot of the Whedon version with some extended scenes, some cut material and a few new features and re-edits that cost $70m to make. I’m not gonna talk heavily about the plot unless it diverges from the original. For example: The prelude begins with the Death of Superman somehow causing a wave across the planet that awakens one of the motherboxes and that’s what draws Steppenwolf to Earth.

First and probably biggest mistake of this film. Even in the comics, Steppenwolf is one of the least interesting of the New Gods and not really worthy of being a major antagonist in a Justice League film. We get an extended scene of the Amazons against Steppenwolf and the Parademons and misstep number 2, the Amazons shouldn’t be used as cannon-fodder. They’re trained warriors with magically gifted strength, it should not be this easy to take them down. Also, Snyder’s signature washed out colours really doesn’t work with a magical fantasy island like Themyscira.

With one mother-box, Steppenwolf begins kidnapping those who have the ‘scent’ of the other motherboxes, which explains why people like Silas Stone being kidnapped. He makes a base in Chernobyl and has long pointless talks with Desaad, yay, a new God who would’ve been more interesting as a main antagonist instead he’s just given a lot of exposition to give and instructs Steppenwolf to do what he was going to do anyway.

I guess I have to talk about the elongated flashback scene. Fans lost their shit when Snyder leaked images of Darkseid being in his version of the film. Frankly, having seen the film, I wish they hadn’t bothered, honestly. Darkseid is weak in this, he doesn’t use his omega-beams and has to be dragged off the battle-field, beaten and bloody. Not really the way you want to introduce the biggest antagonist of your franchise.

The Flash gets an introductory scene where he saves Iris from the world’s worst lorry driver whilst applying to work at a pet store. I get the intent here, but Barry playing with Iris’ hair whilst she’s being involved in a terrible accident is creepy, they’re aren’t an item yet in this world. Still, I have to wonder how Barry even got his powers in this universe? In previous continuities the chemicals that endowed him with his powers came from his forensics lab but this version is nowhere near that yet. Maybe that’s a question Flashpoint can answer.

With Aquaman we get more scenes where people create air pockets so they can talk, this makes no sense when the majority of Atlanteans are water-breathers. Also, they get kidnapped by Parademons. *sigh*

OK, I need to compliment something. Cyborg gets an expanded role which was much missed from the original and sadly provides some validation on Ray Fisher’s claims. Nothing I haven’t seen before but if you’re unfamiliar with the character of Cyborg it get you up to speed on his origin and we get some exposition about his powers. Yes, Silas, it’s a great idea to tell an angry pre-adult that he can launch all the world’s nukes. Still, it’s visually interesting at least.

And there’s also the scene where Alfred explains to Diana how to make tea… That was a genuinely fun little bit.

That’s pretty much covers my thoughts on the stuff they did in part one. I’m sorry if this comes across a bit scattershot, the overall story is still warming up at this stage, despite Steppenwolf having 2 of the 3 motherboxes. It fixes some plot-holes and adds some character depth, but does create a few exclusive problems of its own.

R E B 5 5 T

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